


how many falls until i fly

by jamesniall



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, a fic about a year spent struggling with mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesniall/pseuds/jamesniall
Summary: Usually, Harry helps.In normal situations, in normal semesters, Harry helps. He’s able to bring Niall down from the brink of a high precipice and get him settled and steady again.And Niall knows, he knows things are getting worse when that doesn’t happen.Harry speaks, and he’s good, he’s so good to Niall, so patient, so full of love and understanding, but he speaks and Niall can’t hear him. He hears words and sentences and syllables but nothing sticks. Nothing goes through the panic, nothing breaks down the thick wall of anxiety that surrounds Niall completely.or,The most self-indulgent and therapeutic thing i've ever written, where i project my 2018 on Niall to Cope TM





	how many falls until i fly

**Author's Note:**

> 2018 was hard. it was ugly and long and incredibly terrible for my mental health. it's a year where i've felt at my lowest, and then managed to feel lower than that. a year i want to leave behind but also a year that i have not talked about much and i felt like i needed to, to let it go, to stop repressing it and letting it hold me back, so this is what the fic is.
> 
> is not a pretty fic, it doesn't have much of a plot, it's just me projecting my 2018 on niall as an attempt to put it out there instead of keeping it in me. 
> 
> pls take care of yourselves, if descriptions of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and panic attacks can trigger you/upset you or make u feel a tiny bit not good, pls dont read the fic, bc basically all those things are heavily talked about through the fic.
> 
> i've gone to therapy once. i cant afford to go back even tho i probably really need to, if you can, if in your country it's accesible, if you have the resources, you lose nothing by getting help. be it talking about it with friends, family, a therapist, a suicide prevention hotline, taking meds or writing a fic about it, help can come in many ways and no one should ever feel ashamed of needing it.
> 
> sending love to all of you guys, may 2019 be the year for better mental health, for taking care of ourselves and leaving 2018 dead in a ditch.

January starts without a single warning.

Niall watches as the clock moves slowly towards midnight, the noise of people getting ready to watch the fireworks and getting close to family members to hug them as soon as midnight strikes is faint in Niall’s ears.

He sits in the sofa, alone, a pint in his left hand, the right one moving restlessly against his leg, watching the clock with a mix between fear and wariness.

When everyone cheers and he hears the boom from the fireworks he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and hopes for the best.

 

-

 

Classes start back again on the 15th. Usually he’d go back to uni on the 22th, but since it’s his last semester he starts a week early for the induction week of his semester of practice.

Four rotations of 5 weeks each, a total of 22 weeks. Five months. 154 days. And then he’ll graduate. An official nutritionist.

On the first day of the induction week he has to wake up at five in the morning, which leaves him with a sour taste in his mouth for the entire last week of vacations he has.

He doesn’t sleep that night, because of course he doesn’t. He’s too busy thinking of all the things he’s heard from other classmates that already went through practice. The ones that compare it to med school but instead of medicines you treat people with food. The people who’ve told him he won’t get a blink of sleep. That the hospitals where he’ll have to practice on aren’t student-friendly, you have a question, you won’t have a teacher to help you out.

That this isn’t a class, not anymore, this is basically his first job, instead is not only one but four in 5 months. Four rotations where he’ll have the same schedule he would if he actually worked on the place he’ll be practicing in, where he’ll have to go on the weekends and still be expected to get home to study because even though it’s not a class they still have exams and all of them are important and a bad grade can have such a big impact that if he fails one rotation he’s at risk of failing the whole semester and having to repeat it again and repeating it means paying for the 14 credits and he doesn’t have the money to-

It’s four in the morning when he realizes he’s crying.

The spiral of thoughts come to a halt when he forces himself to sit up and breathe because in his attempt to stay quiet he managed to work himself up so much he feels like his lungs won’t ever expand again.

He moves quietly out of the bed, trying his best not to disturb Harry in the process and tip toes his way to the bathroom.

His vision is blurry and his legs are shaking almost as bad as his hands but he makes it without either making a ruckus or falling on his face.

As soon as he’s inside he closes the door, locks it and slides down the wall to press his forehead against his knees in a feeble attempt to get his breathing under control.

It takes him longer than he expected, because by the time his eyes are dry and his breathing steady he faintly hears Harry’s alarm through the door, signaling him it’s 4:45 am.

Time to wake up.

If only he had gotten to sleep at least one hour during the night.

If only he hadn’t worked himself up into an anxiety attack the night before he starts the most important semester of his life.

If only he had it in him to get up, shower, eat something and go to class with the excitement Liam and Harry are feeling.

A knock on the door startles him, then comes to low rumble of Harry’s morning voice, “Ni? Are you there?”

He clears his throat as quietly as he can, stands up and opens the faucet to get himself in a somewhat a decent state. “Yeah,” he says when he’s drying his face, “sorry, wanted to get the bathroom first before you or Liam beat me to it.”

“Will you open the door? Need to wee,” Harry says, and so Niall does.

Harry looks at him with concern when he steps in and closes the door behind him, “you alright? At what time did you wake up?”

“Just a bit ago,” Niall lies, clearing his throat so his voice isn’t as scratchy, “you gonna shower?”

“Why are your eyes so red, did you sleep well?” Harry asks instead, grabbing Niall’s cheek with one of his hands and stroking it softly. Niall wishes it didn’t make a lump form in his throat and tears prickle at his eyes.

He nods, looking down and making Harry let go of his face.

“You sure you’re alright?” Harry asks again, trying to meet Niall’s gaze, but Niall won’t let him. “Niall.”

And maybe is the way Harry says it. Care and concern and love all mixed into the gentle intonation of his name, but instead of a _sure, I’m fine_ it’s a sob that comes out. Choked up and breathless and completely unstoppable.

“Hey,” Harry soothes, “Niall, what’s wrong, love, what is it?” He asks, and the only thing Niall can do is shake his head and basically shove his head against Harry’s chest, grabbing his sleeping t-shirt and holding onto it so tightly in a try to make his hands stop shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Niall cries, “Just, just a bit overwhelmed, I don’t know-“

“It’s okay,” Harry says, and Niall wishes he could believe him, “You’re alright, you’re gonna be alright. I know it’s scary, but don’t focus on that, try to think on the good things, all the things we’re gonna learn and do and it’ll be a whole new experience every rotation and then we get to graduate!”

“But I don’t know-“ Niall starts, finally looking up at Harry, and the way his eyebrows crease tells Niall he must look like a mess. He certainly feels like a mess. “I feel like I don’t know enough to go work in a hospital, and we’ll have to get up so early and there’s so much to study for, if I fail I won’t-“

“Don’t think about that, why would you fail?” Harry asks, stroking his back with one hand, the other wiping away Niall’s endless supply of tears. “You’re always the smartest in every class, your grades are always good, your GPA is at 4, Niall, you have nothing to worry about.”

If Niall wasn’t feeling like the weight of the world is crushing him he’d take the time to explain that is not about that. That, yeah, he gets good grades, but at the expense of not sleeping, that his GPA is one of the highest, but his mental health has never been this bad before.

That is not about being smart, but about being strong enough to go through it all. Mentally.

Tired, defeated and frustrated about the fact that it’s just past five in the morning but he’s already wishing for this day to end, he keeps his thoughts to himself and just nods instead. He pulls away from Harry, taking a space back in the small space the bathroom allows and nods with a bit more force than necessary, “thank you.” He says, though he doesn’t quite know what for. “Are you going to shower?”

Harry’s still looking at him with concern written clear all over his face, but he nods, as if finishing the conversation, he squeezes Niall’s hands one last time and then lets go to let him wipe his face again. “Yeah, aren’t you? Thought we said we would, together.”

And yeah, the night before they had plans. Wake up at 4:45 am. Cuddle a bit until five. Shower together before Liam stole all the hot water, cook breakfast for the three of them and take the bus to uni.

Now, Niall just shakes his head, “you shower, I will this afternoon, when we’re back.”

“More hot water for me, then,” Harry replies with a small, sad smile. “Go lie down for a bit, then, while I shower you can get like ten more minutes of sleep.”

Niall nods again, kisses Harry’s cheek and leaves him to it.

He spends those ten minutes inside the coziness of their bed, eyes closed as if to trick his body into sleeping but knowing he won’t be able to, wishing he never had to get up ever again.

 

-

 

The teacher who’s assigned to organize the schedules of each rotation and distribute the students into even groups is far too cheery for seven in the morning, Niall thinks.

She explains it all in perfect detail.

There’s four rotations; pediatric nutrition, adult nutrition, public nutrition and food service, which can be in either a hospital or the university’s restaurants.

They’re all separated in groups of 4 students and Niall is thankful for the fact he’s with Liam  and Harry for public nutrition.

He tries not to think about the fact that he knows no one in the other three.

They’ll have an exam for each rotation, an exam at the middle of the semester, and The Final at the end of practice. They’ll have one teacher for each rotation, who, if they want, will make more or less exams/homeworks/presentations during the rotation.

Everything is to be done with the rotation group.

Niall wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans and looks down at the paper he was handed with his schedule.

The first rotation for him is food service in a hospital that’s two streets away from uni, which is good because he knows the neighborhood, knows the transport and has been in that hospital for other classes before.

Thing is, the schedule is from 6 am to 3 pm, with an hour for lunch at 2 pm, from Monday to Saturday. It makes him think of this morning, when he had to get up at five and leave at six. Starting next Monday and for the next five weeks he’ll have to wake up at four and leave at five, six days a week.

It was cold when they left at six. Cold, lonely and still dark outside.

He couldn’t even stomach toast and tea for breakfast because it was so early it felt wrong to eat. Harry reprimanded him with a look and told him he had to get used to it.

Now, he’s glad his stomach is empty, or the queasiness he’s feeling right now would be worst.

He can’t even see himself eating a proper nutritious breakfast at four thirty in the morning.

He swallows hard and focuses back on the teacher.

 

-

 

By the time they’re back on the flat, Niall feels worse than he did in the morning.

A headache started halfway through the first induction day, probably due to the fact that he didn’t sleep the night before, his eyes are still bloodshot, either from crying or from the not sleeping as well, they feel tiny and heavy. His hands have been shaking for what feels like three years.

His back hurts, his knee is twinging and he’s cold down to his bones.

If he hadn’t had that anxiety attack in the morning he’d think he’s coming down with the flu, but at this point, having been struggling with it for the past five years, he knows how he’s due to feel after a sleepless night and an attack all in one day.

He tosses his backpack on the floor, lets go of Harry’s hand, ignores Liam call of his name and goes straight to their bedroom to put on his pajamas.

All plans of showering to relax and eating a good lunch to make up for skipping breakfast fly out of his head when he falls into bed and covers himself in all the blankets they own. He closes his eyes and hopes his restless mind will let him nap the day away.

 

-

 

When he wakes up the whole room is dark. His eyes are crusty, dry and no matter how long he spends rubbing them he has to fight to keep them open enough to find his phone and check the time.

When he turns to check on the bedside table he finds Harry.

Sat on the small sofa they bought when they could finally afford it two years ago. He’s playing something on his phone, if all the colors reflected on his face are any indication, and he’s so focused on it he doesn’t notice Niall is awake until he forces himself to sit up.

“Hey,” Niall croaks out, “what time is it?”

Harry turns to him with wide, surprised eyes but a warm smile, “Almost seven,” he replies, “you didn’t have any lunch so I wanted to wake you up before but you looked exhausted and I just couldn’t.” He continues, standing up from the sofa and sitting in the edge of the bed to be closer to Niall, “you feeling better?”

“I don’t know,” Niall shrugs, gaze turned down to where his fingers are fidgeting with the duvet, “I was just, overwhelmed, since last week, if I’m being honest, and it had been building up until this morning I just,” he shrugs again, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Harry says, taking Niall’s hands in his, “I’m sorry I didn’t notice before, though, we could have avoided this morning, maybe.”

Niall shakes his head, swallowing before looking up at Harry, “don’t think we could have, to be honest. I didn’t sleep at all last night and that mixed with all this anxiety just, it was a recipe for disaster and it’s just gonna get worse from now on.”

“Could have woken me up,” Harry says, “you’ve struggled through semesters before, this is just the last one, the last little push you have to give and then when you least expect it you’re graduating.”

“And then I have to get a job and hope I know enough to keep a job and-”

“Love, stop self-destructing.” Harry says, “it’s been a bad day, a bad more-than-a-day since you didn’t sleep, but tomorrow will be another one, and it’s gonna pass by so quickly you won’t even notice it.”

“You don’t get it,” Niall says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, because he knows Harry means well, he knows he’s always positive in his comfort but somehow, that’s not what Niall needs, “I should drop out.” He says firmly, looking at Harry and refusing to look away despite the pure surprise in Harry’s eyes, “I don’t- I don’t have it in me to go through this, this semester is gonna end me, Haz, I can’t do it.”

“You can, love, you’re not alone in this.” Harry says, squeezing Harry’s hands, “dropping out seems like the easiest way out right now, but you’ve made so much effort the past four years, think of all the classes you’ve passed, all the things you’ve learnt but most importantly, think of all the semesters you’ve gone through and came out alive. Imagine throwing all that effort away, all the money you and your parents have invested in this dream I know you still have, even if right now is being shadowed by fear and anxiety, the Niall I know wouldn’t drop out, he’ll fight with everything he has to survive it.” Harry says, gently catching the tears that helplessly fall on Niall’s cheeks, “you’ve got me, you’ve got Liam and Louis already went through practice before, he can help us all out, and if you need it, Niall, you know you just have to say the words and we’ll get you an appointment with a therapist, you know that’s always on the table, because at some point me and our friends may not be enough, and I want you to have all the resources you need to keep you healthy and happy.”

Niall lets the tears consume him for a while and he just cries. Hoping that this sort of breakdown after one day out of 154 will help him let out all the darkness and hopelessness he’s feeling right now.

 

-

 

January ends as fast as it came, and for a moment Niall thinks Harry was right. Hopes the semester is gonna pass by so quickly he’ll barely notice it.

The first rotation ends in the last week of February. It’s summed up in getting two or three hours of sleep a day, sometimes going two days in a row with no sleep at all. It’s dealing with classmates he’s never worked with before. It’s lack of good communication and frustration over group projects, endless papers to write and menus to make for the next day, it’s waking up at 4 am on a Saturday and feeling so tired he forgets the USB with the final paper on it. It’s calling Harry at 6:05 in the morning, hyperventilating and shaking on the phone, begging to take a cab and bring it to him because without it he’ll fail the rotation and failing a rotation means risk failing the semester and failing the semester means-

He passes it. He doesn’t feel satisfied or happy about it, if he feels anything at all, it’s just relief. 1 out of 4. Just three more to go.

 

-

 

March brings rainy days but more sleep.

His second rotation is public nutrition and is not in a hospital but in a public pre-school where has to weigh and measure the kids, make sure they’re growing as they should according to their age, speak to their parents if they’re not.

It’s the easy one, as Louis, who’s graduating in April, says. He only has to go from Monday to Thursday, 8 am to 3 pm. On Fridays they have a seminar with the teacher to present what they find in the school.

It’s such a change, to go from waking up at 4 am for five weeks straight, to getting up at 6:30, because he has the luxury of leaving at 7:30, since the school is kind of closer to their flat.

He sleeps more, he eats more and Harry smiles more.

He passes it with good grades, the teachers congratulate him.

The anxiety doesn’t leave. Will it ever? His hands still shake when he has to meet up with parents, his breathing gets unsteady when he has to measure the youngest children under the watchful eye of three teachers. He throws up the morning he has the exam at the end of the rotation.

Depression is a constant. Sometimes he gets out of bed as soon as the alarm beeps, sometimes he showers every day of the week, sometimes he cooks and eats a good breakfast and packs some lunch to take to the school and then gets home and has a snack and for dinner he’s hungry to eat with Liam and Harry.

Some others, Harry has to coax him out of bed gently, sometimes not so gently. There’s a week when he doesn’t shower at all, just washes his hair on the sink when it gets too greasy. There are days were he skips breakfast, days when he gets home and eats way too many snacks. Days when he feels too sick and tired to eat anything at all.

Despite all that, the good outweighs the bad, and he’s alright. For those five weeks he feels alright.

He goes home feeling alright. He goes home to rest, because all the work they have to do they do it at the school instead of taking it home, leaving Niall with time to spend with his friends, with Harry, fixing somewhat his sleeping schedule and eating breakfast in the mornings.

He’s alright.

He hopes it lasts.

 

-

 

April is harsh.

Public nutrition ends and pediatric nutrition begins and Niall feels the turmoil of anxiety start – or actually, get worse - on the weekend the second rotation ends. And nothing helps.

Not the drinks Louis, Liam and Harry buy to celebrate they’re halfway through the semester. Not the invitation to Louis’ graduation, which should be some sort of hopeful occasion because it shows that it’s possible to go through practice and come out alive.

Harry doesn’t help, either. He tries, of course he does. He’s always there with a smile, a cuddle, a cup of tea, a joke, or comfortable silence when Niall wants to bury himself in a cocoon of blankets and feel some sort of peace. But on the Sunday before the pediatric rotation starts, there’s nothing that helps.

He spends the day in bed, drinks the cup of tea Harry brings him at midday, nibbles on a piece of toast Harry insists he eats at night, but he doesn’t leave the bed, and his hands don’t stop shaking and yet he feels numb. Exhausted. Bone-deep tired. 

It comes in waves, half the time he’s panicking about the amount of things he’ll have to learn and memorize and do during this rotation, the other half he’s staring at nothing, thinking of nothing and feeling absolutely nothing.

He doesn’t speak a word out loud that day, he doesn’t think he has the energy to do that.

Part of him wishes he didn’t have the energy to breathe at all.

 

 

That day sets the mood for the entire rotation.

The next five weeks are the worst weeks he’s ever gone through in the last five years of university.

The assigned teacher doesn’t help. She’s young, Niall was told by Louis she graduated a year before him, and when Niall heard that he thought she’d be nice, freshly graduated she was bound to empathize with the students and not go too hard on them.

Except, she’s the complete opposite.

On the very first day she asks them if they already know the names and the pathology of the patients he’ll have for the next weeks.

She asks too many questions during the weekly revisions, most of them unrelated to the pathology he had prepared and therefore she catches him unguarded nine out of ten times.

It reflects on his grades.

The first week she explains that every Friday they’ll sit down, no papers, no notebooks and no phones, to talk about one of the 20 patients they were assigned on the first day. She’ll choose the patient randomly, so they’ll have to be prepared. Name, age, gender, pathology, nutritional status, analysis of how the illness is affecting their nutritional status and treatment.

On the second day he goes home and tries his best to organize his assigned patients. He starts in order, beds 822 to 842, he figures he’ll have them organized by Thursday and he’ll be ready for whatever she asks.

On that first revision, he gets a 3,2. Louis congratulates him when Niall texts him about it, says his first pediatric revision went so bad he got a 1,2 and encourages Niall to keep going like that.

He thinks, if he did it well the first week, there’s no way the next four are gonna go wrong.

On the second week, some of his patients were discharged during the weekend, there are about 12 new ones, so whatever he did last week isn’t as useful on this one, but he’s sure that by Friday he’ll have it all ready.

On Thursday, however, the teacher says she won’t have time on Friday and therefore they’ll have the revision that day, after lunch.

Of course, none of them are ready.

He calls Harry as soon as they have lunch break and tries his best not to meltdown right then and there.

“I have nothing Harry, nothing memorized, half of my patients left yesterday so I have to go visit them and do the entire nutritional assessment and the treatment and read _and_ learn how the fucking pathology fucks up whatever treatment I think about, but the revision is today, in an hour, and I have no chance of doing all of that now.”

“She can’t possibly ask you to have all your patients ready when half of them are new.” Harry says, Niall notices a hint of anger in his voice. He hopes he’s not interrupting him.

The thing is, since they were all separated in different rotation groups, Harry still hasn’t been through the pediatrics rotation, he doesn’t know the teacher, hasn’t experienced the harshness in the way she speaks and the fact that she doesn’t care if all of the patients are new, you have to have everything ready at all times.

“It literally defies the laws of time, or something, Niall, you can’t assess twenty children in one morning, she’s insane.”

“I know, I have told you. It doesn’t stop her, she doesn’t care.” Niall says, voice cracking despite his attempts at staying calm, “I’m gonna go in there, in about forty minutes and she’s gonna ask me about a patient I probably haven’t even seen, ever, and she’ll grade me with a zero, Harry, a fucking zero, because I know absolutely nothing.”

“Niall, take a deep breath, please,” Harry says, “keep breathing slow and steady and focus on that for a minute, alright, just a minute and you’ll-”

“Fuck, Harry, I don’t fucking _have_ a minute, I’m telling you I have no time to study and you want me to fucking-” He tries to continue but doesn’t find the air to do so, he coughs, bends down on the stair he’s sitting on and clears his throat. “I can’t spare a single minute, fuck, I can’t.”

“You can and you will, because if you don’t calm down right now your brain is gonna be so scrambled she’ll ask what’s the definition of BMI and you’ll say it’s a car.” Harry says, his voice is firm in the same way it gets when Niall is too worked up to properly panic and gets in a state where he’s not quite having an attack, but he’s also completely unable to calm down. “You’ll breathe for a minute, you’ll go have lunch because you skipped breakfast this morning, don’t even try to deny it, and then you’ll go back there, keep breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and when she asks you about a patient, you either know or you don’t. Niall. It’s as simple as that, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing. If you get a zero, you’ll try extra hard next week and you’ll rise those grades like the champion you are and you’ll be fine. Failing a revision doesn’t equal failing the rotation, much less failing the semester. You'll be alright as long as you calm down.”

Usually, Harry helps.

In normal situations, in normal semesters, Harry helps. He’s able to bring Niall down from the brink of a high precipice and get him settled and steady again.

And Niall knows, he knows things are getting worse when that doesn’t happen.

Harry speaks, and he’s good, he’s so good to Niall, so patient, so full of love and understanding, but he speaks and Niall can’t hear him. He hears words and sentences and syllables but nothing sticks. Nothing goes through the panic, nothing breaks down the thick wall of anxiety that surrounds Niall completely.

He presses the phone harder against his cheek but it doesn’t help.

Realistically, he knows Harry is not a cure. And as much as he wishes a minute of listening to Harry was enough for the anxiety to disappear, it isn’t.

He needs help, he realizes with sudden clarity. Dealing with a monster of this magnitude is not something he should be doing alone during the hardest semester of university.

And yet here he is.

Sitting on a step in the back entrance of the hospital he’s an intern in, bent over with his forehead against his knees and gripping tightly his phone in-between sweaty fingertips. He’s 22 years old. He’s breathing harshly, trembling and numb. Trying to make a voice, a person he loves, fix the storm that brews in his brain constantly.

He has a whole life ahead of him, and yet the only thing he focuses on is on the street in front of him. A busy street with so many buses, so many cars, there’s not traffic lights until a couple streets down, so they’re all going fast and unstoppable.

It would be so easy to take one step in the street and let it be over with.

He needs help, he thinks again. Hanging up the phone and letting it fall in a clatter between his feet.

He needs help and he’s been needing help for years now. An issue so unattended and ignored that has not gone away despite how much Niall denies it’s there, despite the amount of times he has told himself he’s fine. Despite his friends, despite his family, despite Harry.

He needs help because he doesn’t know if his mental health is worse because of the most stressful semester he’s had, or if the semester feels so traumatic because he let his mental health decline to this point.

Maybe it’s both.

Maybe the semester would be going better and easier if he had weekly therapy appointments. Maybe he would be able to eat without feeling sick and he’d fall asleep easily and would stop shaking if he was taking prescribed medication.

Maybe. Probably. Maybe not.

Maybe it’s his fault for not accepting help five years ago when he had his first depressive episode, even if he didn’t know what it was at the time. Maybe he should have gotten help a year after when Harry researched and told him _maybe it’s depression_ and Niall just disregarded it with a _nah, more people have it worse, I’m fine._

He’s not crying, but a part of him tells him he probably should be.

He’s stressed, exhausted in a way no words can describe. And maybe that’s the demand of the semester. Or maybe it’s the depression, dragging him down as it always is.

It might be easier if he stood up and took a step towards the moving cars.

It might also get easier if he picked up his vibrating phone and told Harry to find him an appointment right now.

He suddenly realizes he _wants_ to cry. He wants to let it all out. Let the dark wave of emotions seep out of him, run in strong waves towards the busy street and get crushed under the wheels of fast cars.

He can’t cry. His breathing is still choked up and there’s not enough air reaching his lungs, and despite the fact that there are a lot of stressors and catalysts right now, he can’t cry.

It just makes him feel worse. More trapped. Drowning. Choking.

He turns off his phone after he sees he has six missed calls, all from Harry.

He stands up, turns his shaky fingers into a tight fist and walks into the hospital once more.

He can’t help but feel like he’s doing something terribly wrong.

Feels like he's reaching a new low. Feels like rock bottom.  But it can't be because hitting rock bottom would make it impossible to reach a lower point.

 

 

During the revision he gets asked about a patient he had prepared, and one he didn’t even have the time to visit. He gets a 2,4. The teacher yells about organization and how easy it is for her to have all her patients in order and so it should be easy for them as well.

He leaves wishing he tripped and fell down the stairs, he wishes he could break a bone just so he’d have a proper medical excuse to not go back for the rest of the week.

He wishes he could go to the emergency room and scream for help. For a pain that isn’t quite physical but that hurts none the less. Wishes he could walk towards the nurses station and say _I want to die, I have depression, I can’t live like this any longer_ and get a reaction as fast as he’d get if he walked in screaming he’s having a heart attack.

He wishes he had the guts to call and make a therapy appointment.

Somehow, the concept of opening up to a stranger, with the attention focused solely on him, on a problem that’s invisible to anyone but him, has always scared him. Maybe he’s afraid they’ll say the diagnosis that’s been in his head for years, wary of a confirmation of something he’ll have to deal with his whole life.

Maybe it’s the opposite, maybe the possibility of being told that he’s fine, that there’s nothing wrong with him and he should be a perfectly well, high functioning member of society petrifies him more.

He catches the bus, closes his eyes the entire trip and wishes he never made it home. Let him be the only causality of a car crash.

 

April doesn’t get much better than that.

Harry’s mad at him during that whole week. He yells about not picking up his phone, yells about the need of taking care of himself. He yells and he says things he regrets later, he apologizes. He cooks him his favorite dish and says it’s okay when Niall can only stomach a quarter of it.

Niall wishes he was surprised at the fact that through Harry’s anger, disappointment, regret and pity, he felt absolutely nothing.

 

-

He loses a lot of weight during April and he doesn’t gain it back during May.

He doesn’t need to be a nutritionist to know how unhealthy his eating habits are right now.

The pediatric rotation gets worse, gets even worse, and then it ends.

He passes it, barely.

5,0 being the highest, best grade, 3,0 being the minimum to pass. He ends the rotation with a 3,17 that turns into a 3,2 and that leaves him breathing a little bit easier.

Passing 3 out of 4 rotations means he has less of a chance of failing the semester.

Still, less of a chance doesn’t mean no chance at all, and the relief of the pediatric rotation being over is short-lived because of the deep rooted anxiety of the beginning of the adult nutrition rotation.

 

-

 

Despite how awful pediatric nutrition was, he hits rock bottom in the fourth and last rotation.

And it’s slightly funny, in his opinion. That he felt at his lowest during April, and yet May starts and a new rotation begins and he manages to get lo a lower point.

The hospital he’s assigned is located in the other end of the city.

From 7 am to 3 pm. This time it’s not only on Saturdays that he has to go, but on Sundays too. He goes on Saturday one week, then the next one on Sunday, then back again on Saturday and so on for the next five weeks. Which means there are weeks when he goes from Sunday to Saturday. Seven days.

Seven whole days of work.

Because it is basically a job. Except he isn’t getting paid.

For seven days straight he wakes up at 4:30 in the morning, he skips breakfast, because he learnt by now that his body rejects even the lightest food before six in the morning. He never, not once during those five weeks, showers in the morning, on the days he showers at all he does so at night, usually right before bed, if he goes to bed at all.

Most often than not he ends up sobbing and dry-heaving with water cascading all over his shaking body.

May is summed up in anxiety attack after anxiety attack.

At this point, he feels like a mild attack started on the induction week and has not stopped and will not stop until the semester ends.

His hands are always shaky. He’s thankful, in a terrible way, when he realizes most of his patients can’t leave their beds, because that way he doesn’t have to weigh them or measure them and he doesn’t have to see his unsteady fingers clutching tightly the measuring tape.

One morning on the third week, he decides to not get out of bed.

Harry leaves him with a kiss on his forehead and tells him to take care. “Nothing is going to happen if you stay home one day.”

And yeah, he’s right. One day out of 154.

He’s careful to do it on a day when he knows the teacher won’t do a revision or show up to do a fucking random quiz.

He stays home and he naps the day away.

When he goes back the next day the teacher says something that makes him laugh. “You look better today than any other day, even though you had yesterday off because you were sick.”

And that is funny in and on itself, because how is it possible that it’s a teacher the person who makes him laugh after months of being a shell of who he is.

Niall wants to reply with something. Wants to say _ha! Jokes on you! I’ve been sick the whole semester. I’ve been sick for the past 5 years and only yesterday I had the guts to take a ‘sick day’. To take a day off. Why do you only consider physical things an illness? Does this thing constantly holding me back not count?_

Instead he just smiles and nods.

He feels like he’s been smiling and nodding at depression for five years.

 

He hits rock bottom on the fourth week of the fourth rotation.

On the week 19 of 22. On the day 133.

He just, breaks.

The day starts, he gets up, he puts on his uniform, grabs his backpack, takes the bus, spends from 7 am to 3 pm in the hospital, takes the bus, gets home, takes off his uniform and cries.

He realizes it’s the first time he’s cried in months.

The sobbing that happens in the shower is dry. There are no tears. His chest heaves and his eyes hurt and get red but there’s never tears, he never really cries, it just hurts to breathe.

Right now, though, he has the sheets with the information of all his patients in his lap. And he tries to ignore the tears, tries to read because he has a revision in two days and he needs to do well. Needs a good grade. But his sight is too blurry to make out any words and his breathing is so heavy his head hurts and throbs and his hands shake and he’s whispering to himself “I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to learn this, did I see the patient in the bed 293? I have to read about the pathology. I have to study, I have to pass, I have to do this.”

But he cries.

And cries and cries and cries. At some point the sheets and books all end up in the floor and he ends up in the bed. He shivers and he clutches at his head and his chest and he tries to get himself under control but he can’t fucking stop crying.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, it might be five minutes just how it might be one hour, when he shakily stands up, grabs an ibuprofen from their bedside table and swallows one with a sip of water that’s been sitting in his desk for about four days.

He lies down again and closes his eyes.

The tears don’t stop. He feels congested and disgusting and his head feels on fire, under a huge amount of pressure. He sobs and cries and keeps on crying.

Liam gets home first.

He finds Niall under a mess of blankets, face blotchy and swollen, tears still falling freely down his cheeks. All the contents of his backpack spread all over the floor.

Niall tries to focus on Liam’s voice, tries to quiet down his breathless crying but then he realizes Liam isn’t talking to him. He’s running his fingers through Niall’s hair soothingly but his words are directed at his phone.

He must be calling Harry.

When he hangs up, he throws the phone to the floor and his other hand finds one of Niall’s. “You’re gonna be alright, Ni, you hear me? Harry’s on his way, he’s like ten minutes away, and you’ll be just fine. Whatever’s wrong won’t be wrong forever, we’ll make it better for you, Ni. Just focus on my voice and try to breathe slowly, okay?”

Niall just shakes his head.

He’s not alright. He’s not really listening to Liam. Harry may be on his way, but he won’t help, and if he helps he won’t _fix_ this and Niall wants this fixed. He wants this pressure off, he wants to breathe and he wants to pass this semester and he wants to graduate.

Why is it so hard?

Why does he have to deal with depression and juggle getting good grades while trying not to get consumed by the flames of his anxiety?

Harry’s voice suddenly booms through the room. He makes Niall sit up and with Liam’s help they put his head between his knees as they coach him through the breathing exercises they must have memorized at this point of dealing with Niall’s issues.

Or helping Niall deal with his issues.

Has he ever dealt with his issues at all?

Is he coping, or is he waiting for the easiest way out?

They offer him an ibuprofen when they catch Niall rubbing his temples as if he’s trying to rub away his entire head.

Niall takes it without mentioning he took one already. He doesn’t know how much time has passed since then, but it can’t have been the recommended eight hours between doses.

He doesn't care. And it's horrible and he hates it but he's helpless to it. 

He keeps crying despite their attempts. His breathing does get under control after a while, but the tears fall and fall no matter how many tissues Liam keeps bringing from the bathroom or how many kisses Harry softly presses against his cheeks.

Because, Niall is now realizing, they are not gonna fix this. There’s no romantic ending where Harry kisses away his depression and his best friends soothe away the anxiety, where his family loves him and they scare away the panic attacks and the self-destructive thoughts.

He has to take reins of his mental health and do it himself.

They’ll always be there to help. But they’ll do nothing if Niall doesn’t start helping himself.

 

He eventually falls asleep.

Exhausted down to his bones, headache lessening but still pounding harshly against his temples, without having studied a single thing, he falls asleep, and sleeps for seven hours straight.

 

Harry wakes him up at five in the morning.

“We need to talk about last night,” he says after Niall comes out of the bathroom.

It’s a Saturday, Niall suddenly remembers, Harry doesn’t have to go today, but Niall does, and he needs to leave in half an hour if he wants to make it on time.

“I know,” he replies, “I- It’s bad, I have- I’ve let it- I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure you feel up for going today? Louis can find one of his med school friends to write you a note.”

“You can fail by missing three days of practice. I’ve already missed one, I’m not gonna risk it, not when it’s almost over.” Niall says, “Can you- I’m sorry I keep asking for so much but can you please- the call, I can’t, would you-”

“You want to go to therapy,” Harry softly interrupts his rambling. “Of course I’ll make the call, what day works best for you?”

“At this point, as soon as possible is best, as long as it’s after 3, I’ll do it tomorrow if I can.”

“You’d go on a Sunday if I find you a spot for an appointment?” Harry asks, a bit dumbfounded but with a glint of what Niall things is pride, or maybe relief, in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Niall nods, “I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to, just.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I told you, three years ago, that we’d always go by your pace, if you feel ready now, we’ll do it. I’ll make the call. If it helps you, Niall, I won’t be sad about the lost time, I’ll just be incredibly happy there’s finally something that helps.” Harry says, and Niall truly didn’t expect that.

“I love you, you know,” Niall whispers, if he tries to speak any louder his voice will break and he’s had enough crying to last him a lifetime. “So much.”

“I love you, too, very much a lot.” Harry whispers back with a small smile.

 

-

 

His appointment is on a Tuesday at 4:40 pm.

He gets the confirmation of a diagnosis he’s lived with for the past five years.

It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.

If anything, it feels like a step in the right direction.

 

-

 

June brings the end of the fourth rotation. He passes with a 3,01 he fought with tooth and nail to get.

It might not be the best grade he could have ever gotten.

But it’s what he needed, and for now, that’s enough.

Four out of four. He passed four rotations that threatened to kill him during the past 21 weeks.

There’s just the final left. Four random questions. 20% of the final grade.

He studies the entire week. Sleeps in random bouts during the day. A half an hour nap after studying public nutrition for three hours, a 20 minutes nap after studying pediatrics for half an hour.

It’s incredibly overwhelming. To know that out of the huge amount of things he learnt this semester, he’ll only get four questions, he’ll only have to give out four answers. And it might be the ones he’s studied the most, or it might be a topic he didn’t have time to study at all.

Is it luck?

Is it about how much he actually learnt?

Will it reflect how bad he's been at dealing with the semester?

He doesn’t know. He just wants it all to be over.

On the day of the final he gets to the classroom pale, with deep purple bags under his eyes but with an energy he hasn’t felt in months.

He’s one of the first ones called in, and by eight in the morning he’s already out of the classroom with his final grade.

He passed. He’s done with university for good. The only thing left to do is graduating in September.

It doesn’t feel like a victory, not after all of that. Not after the hundred and one times he imagined himself dying instead of graduating.

The relief, however, it can’t be denied.

 

-

 

July is spent sleeping.

Harry indulges him in the first two weeks. He’s exhausted as well and if they can cuddle without having to worry about setting an alarm, they’re more than happy.

At first he tells himself he’s recharging. He didn’t sleep more than 3 hours a day for five months, if he wants to stay in bed the whole day he has every right to, doesn’t he?

 

-

 

He realizes he doesn’t when August arrives and he’s still in bed.

Louis gets him out of the flat to celebrate. “You’re joining the professional nutritionist life, Nialler, that deserves a couple pints.”

He goes out and comes back exhausted.

 _Alcohol and depression are not a good combination._ He remembers his therapist said back in May.

Practice wasn’t good combined with depression but he went through both anyway.

He drinks.

He gets home.

He sleeps some more.

Harry asks him about therapy. When is he gonna schedule the next one? The first one helped, sort of, he should continue, Harry says.

Niall says he’s been to way too many hospitals in a short amount of time, he deserves to rest a bit more before wanting to go back to one.

 

-

 

On September he graduates.

Nutritionist, his diploma says, and Niall smiles but it still doesn’t feel like a victory.

His mum cried happy tears and his dad hugs him and tells him how proud he is.

Liam and Harry take million of pictures of him, of them, diplomas in hand, wearing a suit that used to fit Niall perfectly at the begining of the year. Make up hiding the purple bags under his eyes that have not gone away despite all the sleeping he's been getting.

 

-

 

On October Harry says he’s going to start looking for a job.

Liam is already working at a hospital and he’s happy and energetic and he comes back home looking forward to the next day.

His mum calls and asks him how’s the job searching going, he says he wants to take a bit more of time off before he starts a whole new experience.

She says she understands, even though Niall can clearly hear the disappointment in her voice.

He tries to convince himself that the crying session in the shower was just that. It wasn’t an anxiety attack. The semester is over. He has no reason.

 

-

 

He has his second therapy appointment in November.

She helps him understand how depression and anxiety co-exist.

She helps him realize a pattern he should have realized himself years ago. His depression always gets worse during vacation. The time off between semester and semester is usually spent in bed, sleeping and forgoing self-care. He doesn't have a schedule to stick to, and it's as if having no academic responsabilities equals having no responsabilities with himself. On the other side, the anxiety is more active during the semester. When there's papers to write and not enough time and way too many sleepless nights.

Neither of them stop existing. One doesn’t cancel the other.

Niall felt it and lived through that during five months. 154 days. 22 weeks where the anxiety shocked him and the depression slowed him simultaneously.

He goes home feeling better than he has in a while.

 

-

 

December comes and Niall can’t believe he’s made it another year.

He’s been living with depression for five years and somehow, this is the first year he’s actually genuinely shocked about the fact that he’s still alive.

Thinking about finding a job makes his hands shake and his brain short circuit into panic, but he knows the recovery line doesn’t always have to go up. Progress isn’t constant and there’ll always be setbacks and bad days and terrible days and days when he’ll look at busy streets and fast cars with more longing that he looks at Harry.

He has his third therapy session and before he goes home, he schedules the fourth.

Harry greets him home with a smile and a hug and they don’t make a big deal out of it. Going to therapy is now just another thing added to the list of things that help. Harry, Liam, Louis, his family, therapy.

Himself.

Most importantly himself.

He’s aware of the fact that December 31st 2018 finds him in a much worse place than he was on December 31st 2017.

He’s aware he caved himself a hole with a tiny bit of water and a little bit of food and he tried to keep himself alive with just that for 5 years.

He’s aware that he’s slowly but surely crawling and taking baby steps out of that hole.

He doesn’t know what 2019 will bring.

But when the clock rings twelve times at midnight it does feel like a victory.

Not passing the semester. Not graduating. Not even going to therapy.

The victory is starting 2019 with more hope in himself. With more hope in life.

The victory is starting 2019.

The victory is that 2018 is over, and even though time is a social construct and it doesn’t make sense, it feels like a victory to turn the page and leave it all behind.

He’s probably not ready for 2019. But he hopes 2019 is ready for him.

**Author's Note:**

> and there it goes. goodbye 2018. i will remember u with bitterness and a weird sort of sadness and maybe a tiny bit of satisfaction.
> 
> pls remember that all of this is based on my experience with depression and anxiety. everything niall feels and says and does and thinks is something i did as well at some point during the year. mental illness is different on every one. and this is just my take on it.
> 
> i, however, didnt have a harry lmao.....harry, in this fic, is what, kind of, my mom and my sister were to me during the year. they weren't there during the many breakdows i had, but harry's words are something that my mom and my sister told me at times. other times, harry in this fic says and does what i wish someone had during the year.
> 
> so, yeah, that was my way of leaving all of that in 2018 and starting 2019 with the feeling of victory at the fact i am here today.
> 
> i send u all the best wishes for 2019. may it bring good mental health, happiness, love, and everything 2018 didnt have.
> 
> take care of yourselves.


End file.
